I write first drafts feverishly fast, and then I spend years editing. It's not that sentence-by-sentence perfectionist technique some writers I admire use. I need to see the thing, in some form, and then work with it over and over and over until it makes sense to me - until its concerns approach me, until its themes come to my attention. At that editing stage, the story picks itself and it's just up to me to see it, to find it. If I've done a good job, what it all means will force me to confront it in further edits.

I write first drafts feverishly fast, and then I spend years editing. It's not that sentence-by-sentence perfectionist technique some writers I admire use. I need to see the thing, in some form, and then work with it over and over and over until it makes sense to me - until its concerns approach me, until its themes come to my attention. At that editing stage, the story picks itself and it's just up to me to see it, to find it. If I've done a good job, what it all means will force me to confront it in further edits.

I always read the Latin American writers. I love so many of them: Gabriel García Márquez, José Donoso, Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Luis Borges, Clarice Lispector. I also love a lot of American experimental writers and surrealist European writers. But perhaps The Persian Book of Kings was the greatest influence - I encourage people to look at it. There is such a wealth of incredible stories.

My characters' addictions are what makes them a bit stylized or "grotesque" - not just in appearance but through what drives them. Addiction is what threatens stability and normalcy and yet it seems very much a part of being human - at least we are all a bit obsessive and compulsive. Aren't all humans driven by mad desires for one thing or another?

It [9/11 tragedy] has affected us on so many levels: economically, morally, spiritually, ethically. It's been all over the place. A new American identity emerged - we now live in a very different America. This is the power of the definitive event.

I love to read and teach experimental fiction but yes, neither this work nor my first novel is really that experimental. It uses some experimental techniques but in the end, I would not say that it is experimental. I'm not sure why. I do a lot of writing on my own, and I have always just written this way.

In South Pasadena, artists were around but invisible somehow. Even though it was just a fifteen-minute drive from Downtown LA, it felt worlds apart. That suburban American experience can both protect and stunt you. I couldn't wait to move to New York to become the person I've always wanted to become.